Hector Rodriguez III

Rodriguez, a 1st grade teacher in the Dallas Independent School Disctrict, began writing El Peso Hero as a side project.
Having grown up in a Texas border town with a largely Hispanic population, the comic book creator said that he felt that "there was a misrepresentation of the Hispanic population in the mainstream" media. El Peso Hero sprung from that lack: "Kids in Spanish-speaking communities don't have a hero that relates to them."

The first volume sees the superhero combating a drug trafficking ring and a corrupt political system. A second volume is almost finished, and Rodriguez plans to continue the hero's story for a series of six.

While Rodriguez began the project with the aim of keeping his teaching and artistic life separate, he found that after an interview with Univision, the lines blurred: "A lot of families saw me there and felt inspired," he explained, noting that soon after the interview, some of his elementary students "would go home and write their own stories."